The New York Knicks finally got their man. For years, whispers around the NBA told the same story: Knicks head of basketball operations Leon Rose wanted Karl-Anthony Towns at Madison Square Garden. Some believed it was only a matter of time before it happened. And now it has.
The NBA landscape quaked once more — as if the Mikal Bridges trade in June wasn’t shell-shocking enough — when it was reported that Towns was headed to the Knicks in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, with the Charlotte Hornets greasing the wheels as the third team.
There are many ways to view the Knicks-Wolves trade, but the most intriguing lens presents a fascinating subplot:
What if the Knicks and Wolves are each making a bet, not just on themselves, but that the Phoenix Suns will hold a fire sale in the coming months?
In such a scenario, each team would try to lure away a coveted superstar with close ties to an existing star. For the Knicks, that would be Devin Booker, who is tight with Towns, each a former client of Rose. The Timberwolves, on the other end, would set their eyes on Kevin Durant, whose side Anthony Edwards couldn’t leave at the Paris Olympics.
Yes, the Knicks-Wolves trade is massive with enormous reverberations across the league, but could the biggest wave be yet to come? Let’s start in New York, where Rose continues to build a burgeoning empire through his deep Creative Arts Agency connections.
Rose and the CAA connection
As a mega agent, Rose represented a who’s-who in the NBA, including LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Joel Embiid and Dwyane Wade. Upon being hired by James Dolan in early March of 2020, one of Rose’s first orders of business was to hire his right-hand man at CAA, Williams “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, to the front office, a man who has been known to some insiders as the most powerful, most important man in the basketball world.
Rose almost never talks to the media, but he made himself available to sit down with MSG announcer Mike Breen for a rare interview in June 2020 primarily so he could talk about the Wesley hire.
“Wes is one of the most well-respected and connected people in the basketball community,” Rose said. “I just think he’s going to bring so much to this organization. … This business is built on relationships. It’s built on how you treat people. It’s built on working hard. It’s built on all these characteristics that Wes possesses.”
From the front office to the floor, the Knicks’ CAA ties now run throughout Madison Square Garden. Tom Thibodeau? CAA client. OG Anunoby, whom the Knicks acquired and signed to a max deal? CAA. Jalen Brunson, whom the Knicks recruited and convinced to sign a below-market deal? CAA. Even Rose’s son, Sam, is a CAA agent who reps Brunson. And Towns? You guessed it: CAA. The family ties go further: Brunson’s father, Rick, was Rose’s very first NBA client as a scrappy young agent out of New Jersey. And now Rick Brunson is one of Thibodeau’s top assistant coaches on the Knicks’ sidelines.
Scoff all you want about Rose’s CAA connection. But it has helped chart the path for him and the Knicks to become an NBA superpower.
To understand how the Knicks went from a floundering 18-42 franchise when Rose took over basketball operations to a competent title contender, one needs to be acquainted with the shape-shifting power center of Rose, Wesley and CAA-repped John Calipari (Towns’ and Booker’s former coach at Kentucky).
For years, it was a highly influential, unofficial triumvirate that led to Final Fours, No. 1 picks and plenty of riches. Calipari was the coach. Wesley was the connector. Rose was the player agent.
One might think the story of Towns’ college recruitment dates back to 2012, when Towns announced he was reclassifying to the high school class of 2014 and committing to the Kentucky Wildcats to play for then-head-coach Calipari.
But that’s not the beginning. It goes back two years earlier, in 2010, when it was announced that a 15-year-old from New Jersey named Karl-Anthony Towns would be playing for the Dominican Republic national team alongside NBA players like Al Horford and Francisco Garcia. (Towns’ late mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns was a native of the Dominican Republic.)
In the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, Towns, Horford and Garcia traveled to the Kentucky Wildcats’ practice facility in Lexington as part of the Dominican Republic national team training to qualify. Horford, a champion at Florida, and Garcia, a Louisville product, joked about how their collegiate legions would hate the idea. But they were there because the national team’s coach was none other than Kentucky’s John Calipari, who took the job in 2011.
Why would Calipari, the grandson of Italian immigrants, agree to coach the Dominican team? One clue took the form of one of the top players in his high school class: Towns.
Calipari has insisted that he didn’t take the Dominican Republic head-coaching job with the hidden agenda of signing Towns to Kentucky. True or not, soon after, Towns chose Calipari’s Kentucky program and reached the 2014 Final Four in their first and only season together in Lexington. After Towns helped lead Calipari’s Wildcats to a 38-0 record, he announced he would forgo his remaining college eligibility, hire an agent and formally enter the NBA Draft. That agent? CAA’s Leon Rose, who was Wesley’s long-time…
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